NORTH CENTER — There's a hole in the ground where the Rugby Club Pub used to stand on Damen Avenue.
A three-story apartment building is set to rise on the site, which newer neighbors know better as the home of the former Black Rock, and old-timers will remember as a hub for members of North Center's Austrian-German community.
On a recent afternoon, piles of Chicago common brick were all that remained of the 112-year-old building at 3614 N. Damen Ave., once known as Sauhammel's Tavern and before that Habetler's.
"It was very much a neighborhood place, a home for people who were homesick," said Heidi Sauhammel.
During the 1970s, up until she was about 10 years old and her parents divorced, Sauhammel lived above the tavern with her mom and dad, both immigrants from Austria.
Well, not so much "lived," really. The apartment was "just sleeping quarters," she said.
The real action was downstairs, where her mom Trudy was in charge of the kitchen, serving up wiener schnitzel and bratwurst, and her dad Richard kept the drinks flowing from behind the bar while polkas played on the jukebox.
"It had the feel of being a microcosm of the neighborhood within the four walls of the tavern," said Sauhammel.
Heidi remembers hanging out in the bar coloring, doing her homework and watching cartoons after school on the bar's lone television — until firemen from Engine 112 up the street would come in for a drink and say, 'Turn on the ballgame,'" Sauhammel recalled.
"Another memory that I have: Eight o'clock was my bedtime and Mom always gave me a cup of milk. My mom would come out of the kitchen with the milk and customers would go, 'Uh oh, time for bed,'" said Sauhammel.
"I feel like as a kid that I knew every customer in there and that they knew me," she said.
Since news of the demolition spread, some of those former barflies have contacted her to share their stories of Sauhammel's and Habetler's (owned by Trudy Sauhammel's cousins, Paul and Ida Habetler).
"It was kind of an Austrian German 'Cheers,'" one summed up in an email.
With the building now reduced to rubble, Sauhammel said she's heartbroken that the role the tavern played in the neighborhood's history is gone with it.
"It's a story of that time period and also part of the immigrant story," she said.
For Sauhammel, the loss is personal too.
Though the bar had changed hands three times since her father lost the place in the early '90s, it never stopped feeling like home.
"I think I went twice when it was Black Rock," said Sauhammel, who lives in Lincoln Square. "To see twenty-somethings drinking martinis, I wanted to say, 'Get out of here. Get out of my house.'"
The old Sauhammel's, at 3614 N. Damen Ave. [Photos courtesy of Heidi Sauhammel]
Sauhammel's bowling team bellies up to the bar.
Celebrations at Sauhammel's.
Heidi Sauhammel in the kitchen with her mom.
A Chicago Tribune "Cheap Eats" review of Sauhammel's. [Chicago Tribune archives]
The building has been reduced to rubble. [DNAinfo/Patty Wetli]
